Sorry Wee Man - You're Not The Answer

SO, it seems we are to get the "Ginger Whinger" as the new Scotland boss - once again, the Tartan Army gets the man it wants, the Hampden "blazers" buy themselves a few months of respite from "friendly fire" and we trundle along in the rut we have struggled along for this entire century.

Nothing against wee Gordon, he was a terrific player with Aberdeen, Manchester United, Leeds United and Scotland. He was a very good manager with Celtic, lacking only the Celtic family DNA (being a "Ginger" was seemingly insufficient) or he would have been canonised as a Celtic Great ere now; however, all those trophies weren't enough to make him "one of us" - shame.

However, managing Scotland, where you have to pish with the small cock you've been given, in terms of native-born talent, is not the same as managing a club as big as Celtic. When things went slightly awry at Parkhead he only had the lunatic fringe of the Celtic Family to worry about. When, as they surely will, things go awry with Scotland, the wee man will have the entire country on his back.

Given his reputation as a wee bit of a nippy sweety - perhaps learned at the feet of Scottish football's ultimate nippy sweety - might not Gordon, as he has done before, say: "Sod this for a game of soldiers" and return to the bosom of his buddies in the meja darn sarf?

We can, at least, expect him to enjoy a good working relationship with Billy Stark, which can only be good. However, one area where neither Strachan, Stark, Mark Woete or anyone else with any input into the Mission Impossible of getting Scotland back (even below the salt) at football's top table has any discernible input is in changing the mindsets within Scotland's board rooms.

And, until we clear-out the intelluctually-challenged directors whose lack of vision, common sense or more-importantly, intelligence, to see that Scottish football overall is in a mess, then not even a combination of Sir Alex Ferguson with Jose Mourinho as assistant could get Scotland to a World Cup or European Championship final tournament.

We still produce kids as good as any - but - the system will not let them flourish, and no manager can change the failed system. Only the directors can and the will is not there.

MICHAEL Grant wrote a very good piece in Monday's Herald about the current undeclared war between Celtic and Rangers, then, right on cue, in Tuesday's papers, Charles "Motormouth" Green came out in favour of a 14-14-14 split, as against the seemingly preferred 12-12-18 suggestion of the SPL and SFL for the new-look to Scottish league football.

Yawn, yawn, yawn - talk about weans, prams and toys.

I ALSO note that Richard Scudamore of the English Premiership has come out this week and said there is no chance of Celtic and Rangers, either together or separately, being admitted to the Premiership.

As I have repeatedly said: the two clubs, if they must leave Scotland to fully cash-in on their earning potential, would best be served by lobbying within the ECA, the European Clubs Association, for the speedy formation of a full-scale, NFL-style European League, rather than giving themselves a sore head battering at the closed door in England.

Look at the set-up in the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, MLB and MLS - the big North American professional leagues in American Football, basketball, ice hockey, baseball and "real" football.

The clubs start off playing local conference games, playing down to a big show-down, this can be a seven-game series (basketball, ice hockey and baseball) or a one-off game such as "Superbowl) or the MLS Championship Game.

Extrapolate the American system into Europe - instead of having "conferences" such as the AFL or NFL ones, we have cross-border regional leagues; we then have the knock-out stages of the Champions and Europa Leagues, where in North America they have conference play-offs, leading to the likes of baseball's World Series. It's not that big a leap of the imagination.

Celtic, Rangers - forget England, Europe is the future.

However, if they must get into England, persuade the SFA to give up their independence and rejoin the (English) FA - let's go back to where we were in 1872. At least that's a bit closer to the present day than 1690 - the date a large proportion of the fan base seem to want to be. Although I don't see Alex Salmond, for one Tartan Army member, being too happy.